Illness perceptions of leprosy-cured individuals in Surinam with residual disfigurements – “I am cured, but still I am ill”

Objective Leprosy has rarely been the subject of health psychology research despite its substantial impact. Our aim was to explore illness perceptions in patients and their health care providers in Surinam. The Common Sense Model (CSM) was the guiding theoretical model. Design Patients with biomedically cured leprosy and their health care providers completed the B-IPQ and took part in semi-structured interviews. The literature on illness perceptions in patients with leprosy was reviewed. Main outcome measures Patients’ B-IPQ scores were compared with samples of patients with other (chronic) illnesses, and with health care providers completing the questionnaire as if they were visibly disfigured patients. Quotations from the semi-structured interviews were used to contextualise the illness perceptions. Results Patients’ B-IPQ scores reflected the chronic nature of leprosy and were comparable with those with other chronic illnesses. Health care providers perceived leprosy to have a greater negative impact than did the patients. Perceived understanding of causes differed considerably between patients and health care providers. Conclusion Leprosy continues to be experienced as an illness with major psychological and social consequences such as stigmatisation, even after biomedical cure. Interventions that target patients, health care providers, and society at large may help reduce perceived shame and stigma. The CSM is a helpful theoretical model in studying this population. </jats:sec

Tumor bed brachytherapy for locally advanced laryngeal cancer: a feasibility assessment of combination with ferromagnetic hyperthermia

Purpose. To assess the feasibility of adding hyperthermia to an original method of organ-preserving brachytherapy treatment for locally advanced head and neck tumors. Methods and materials. The method involves organ-preserving tumor resection and adjunctive high-dose-rate (HDR) brachytherapy delivered via afterloading catheters. These catheters are embedded in a polymeric implant prepared intraoperatively to fill the resection cavity, allowing precise computer planning of dose distribution in the surrounding at-risk tumor bed tissue. Theoretical and experimental analyzes address the feasibility of heating the tumor bed implant by coupling energy from a 100 kHz magnetic field applied externally into ferromagnetic particles, which are uniformly distributed within the implant. The goal is to combine adjuvant hyperthermia (40 °C–45 °C) to at-risk tissue within 5 mm of the resection cavity for thermal enhancement of radiation and chemotherapy response. Results. A five-year relapse free survival rate of 95.8% was obtained for a select group of 48 male patients with T3N0M0 larynx tumors, when combining organ-preserving surgery with HDR brachytherapy from a tumor bed implant. Anticipating the need for additional treatment in patients with more advanced disease, a theoretical analysis demonstrates the ability to heat at-risk tissue up to 10 mm from the surface of an implant filled with magnetically coupled ferromagnetic balls. Using a laboratory induction heating system, it takes just over 2 min to increase the target tissue temperature by 10 °C using a 19% volume fraction of ferromagnetic spheres in a 2 cm diameter silicone implant. Conclusion. The promising clinical results of a 48 patient pilot study demonstrate the feasibility of a new organ sparing treatment for laryngeal cancer. Anticipating the need for additional therapy, theoretical estimations of potential implant heating are confirmed with laboratory experiments, preparing the way for future implementation of a thermobrachytherapy implant approach for organ-sparing treatment of locally advanced laryngeal cancer

Music and lyric characteristics of popular Dutch funeral songs

This study compared the characteristics of 150 songs (Dutch lyrics, N = 47, English lyrics, N = 103), popular at Dutch funerals, to an equal number of non-funeral songs. The variables explored included those linked with the music (valence, energy, danceability, acousticness, key, and tempo); and lyrics, namely: linguistics-related (first-person singular/plural, second-person pronouns; past, present, future tense; expressed emotion (positive, negative words, and the discrete emotional categories anger, anxiety, sadness); and category words (those relating to family, friends, death, religion). Funeral music was lower in valence, energy, and danceability and higher in acousticness than non-funeral music. Furthermore, English funeral music lyrics contained more second-person pronouns and were more future-focused than comparison songs. Funeral lyrics were not particularly negative, but English texts contained more words relating to sadness. In conclusion, funeral music differs in severable notable respects from general popular songs that may reflect the special purpose of this music

A Comparison of Music Characteristics of Funeral Music from Croatia, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom

Music forms an integral and essential part of funeral rituals worldwide, but has to date received little systematic research attention. Recent investigations into funeral music used in the Netherlands showed that it is lower in tempo and valence, less energetic, and more acoustic than popular music. Funeral music is also often in a major mode. The present study sought to replicate these findings for a Dutch (NL) funeral music sample and to expand upon previous knowledge by investigating the audio features provided by Spotify, namely: valence, energy, tempo, acousticness, instrumentalness, mode, and danceability for funeral music samples from Croatia (HR) and the United Kingdom (UK). First, values of music characteristics for funeral music used in HR, N = 388 pieces, NL, N = 500 pieces, and UK, N = 439 pieces, were compared to values of popular control music from each country separately. Previous findings were replicated: for HR, NL, and UK, funeral music displayed a similar pattern as described above. Second, the values of Spotify audio features for funeral music were compared between countries. Analyses revealed significant differences between NL/UK and HR, namely lower valence and energy and higher acousticness (only HR-UK) and instrumentalness for NL/UK compared to HR. Effect sizes were, however, small and are likely due to differences in music selections. These results suggest that, even though there is much diversity in music pieces and songs, funeral music within and across these European countries is more alike than different in terms of its audio characteristics

Embedded large eddy simulation of transitional flow over NACA0012 aerofoil

An accurate computation of near-field unsteady turbulent flow around aerofoil is of outstanding importance for aerofoil trailing edge noise source prediction, which is a representative of main contributor to airframe noise and fan noise in modern commercial aircraft. In this study, an embedded large eddy simulation (ELES) is fully implemented in a separation-induced transitional flow over NACA0012 aerofoil at a moderate Reynolds number. It aims to evaluate the performance of the ELES method in aerodynamics simulation for wall-bounded aerospace flow in terms of accuracy, computational cost and complexity of implementation. Some good practice is presented including the special treatments at RANS-LES interface to provide more realistic turbulence generation in LES inflow. A comprehensive validation of the ELES results is performed by comparing with the experimental data and the wall-resolved large eddy simulation results. It is concluded that the ELES method could provide sufficient accuracy in the transitional flow simulations around aerofoil. It is proved to be a promising alternative to the pure LES for industrial flow applications involving wall boundary layer due to its significant computational efficiency